PROHIBITION: Brother-in-law A cquitted

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In a Santa Monica. Calif, police court last week Judge Charles M. Spencer sat on the bench listening to witnesses tell how they had arrested Cornelius Van Ness Leavitt, President Hoover's brother-in-law, last month as he emerged from a grocery store carrying a gunny sack loaded with 19 pints of whiskey (TIME, Nov. 23). Then Judge Spencer heard Mr. Leavitt explain how he had been taking a drink in the rear of the store* when somebody put the sack in his hand, asked him to get rid of it; how he did not know its contents; how he walked out the back door into the arms of Federal agents. Declared Judge Spencer: "I don't believe there's a person in this courtroom who would find this defendant guilty. He did exactly as any of us would have done under the circumstances. I find him not guilty."

The crowd clapped. Brother-in-law Leavitt, once a plumber, bowed, grinned, shook hands all around.